LIFE'S ADVENTURES

We had an adventure last Night. It must have been a little after 9 PM that I felt the house was cooling down. I turned up the thermostat and checked the registers. There seemed to be heat coming from one of them, which was weird, but in about a half hour it was clear that the furnace shut down. The forecast was for 2 degrees above zero, that didn't bode well for our comfort. I looked up heating contractors in this area on the internet and saw two that were fairly close. It occurred to me to ask somebody who lived here for a recommendation. I did. They recommended one of those I had chosen. I called them. They had one call they were busy with but felt they would get here in an hour.

This house must be well insulated because the temperature dropped slowly. The thermostat was set at 73 and it was still 70ish when I called for help. But it reached a point where it dropped rapidly. I found a little electric heater we brought over from our old house and plugged it in in my study. I sat at my computer playing solitaire and waited. Was he coming? Did he get held up? Did I give him the wrong address?

The furnace repair man arrived about 11:30. He found a dirty flame sensor that was causing the system to shut down. He cleaned things up and checked everything and said the furnace is working fine. He explained to me what a flame sensor is but I didn't get it.

All and all it was a good adventure. I enjoyed meeting the repair man. I admire people who do that kind of work and it must be great to help people out. I looked at the furnace and it was a complete mystery to me. I replaced and relit pilot lights and even replaced fuel nozzles but these modern furnaces don't look anything like what I am familiar with. Of course it is 43 years since I lived in a house with a furnace. We heated with wood and then installed a ground source heat pump in the house we just moved from.

I mentioned before that somewhere a long the line of my recovery I developed insomnia. It was bad last Night. The last time I had bouts of insomnia I was in graduate school. It is kind of a graduate student disease. I think when I was in graduate school I just had trouble getting to sleep. With this insomnia I generally go to sleep okay and then wake up one hour later. I am wide awake. Attempting to get back to sleep causes agitation. It varies in intensity. Sometimes I go back to sleep after a little while and sometimes I get up for a while. I often just sleep in snatches of 45 minutes to an hour. There is a similar insomnia some folks have after drinking a few cocktails before bed but I am not drinking. This has been going on about two months.

I thought it was caused by unfaced fears of dieing or needing more treatment, but now that I have had a clear PET scan it should get better. I was always a little skeptical of that interpretation. I don't think I have a fear of dieing, at least not something that would keep me up at Night.

I believe there are no accidents and this insomnia is my creation but for the life of me I can't figure it out. I must be trying to teach myself something. Perhaps I am trying to teach myself that the answer lies within. Believe me I am looking within.

The sting of the insomnia melts away when I see how thankful I am. I have everything a person could possibly want and every so called problem turns out to be some kind of blessing. I knew the adventure with the furnace was going to be more than okay. I was never rattled by it even with the temperature outside plummeting. I got to meet another person who does magic with his hands. That was great.

I will keep looking inside and the insomnia episodes will turn out to be a blessing also.

HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE AND HAPPY NEW MOON!

Love and Peace, Gregg